What Religious belief are you?

[Thein]

Mrgumby
Anything can be deceptive. Our proof and calculations may actually be wrong, and perhaps all of this could not have any meaning at all. That's why I believe Science ironically relies on some faith, that being the faith their observations and data will get them somewhere, will do something, and is in fact correct.

BorneDogger.
I see what you are saying with the whole tea pot idea; however, it is very different from this. First off, you have to take into consideration that the whole entire world has been influenced by some aspect of Religion, let it be Catholicism, Hinduism, Judaism, or any other religion out there. It is often the backbone of what Humans have based their actions on, and slowly that branch is growing away from that backbone. There is not only that but the NDEs that have been reported are similar: not one has been different and reported. Psychologically, that is not possible.
Also keep in mind that there is no observational evidence AGAINST a divine creator. You told us that Science does not prove things, it disproves things. Well, either way you look at it, you cannot disprove him either, and no evidence points to him being "unlikely,"
We figured out the BB model could be true and may provide us with how our universe came to be
But that does not say our universe came from a God, nor does it say it came from nothing.. It just says it came from a "God Particle," which we have no way of knowing where that particle even came from.

[Bornerdogge]

I understand your point about the influence of religion, but I don't fully agree when you say "we are slowly drifting away". This could be true for societies, but I think many individuals, whose parents were atheists, who got a non-religious education, are quite free from that kind of influence (not 100% of course). It also strongly depends on what you understand about the word "religion". If you mean superstition, our kindhood and society is full of them, but personally I think I've managed to get free of them. If you mean social rules, then of course our socialist society is fully based on christian principles, even if there's no direct influence of the church. If you mean institutions, the power of the church is nearly down to zero (in Western European Cities).

Of course there's no evidence against a god. But what I was trying to say is if you take the existence of god as a real hypothesis, and compare it to scientific alternatives, the difference is easy to see: When a scientist suggests an hypothesis, he has to justify his endeavour either by some theory, or by big amounts of observations... If not, everybody could suggest anything, and if it can't be proven, nobody could say it's wrong (the tea pot idea). The god hypothesis has zero observational, nor any theoretical arguments that point in favour of it. Thus, the god hypothesis isn't wrong, but very, very unlikely.

(I'm not a native English speaker so maybe some of my words are not well chosen...)

[Kasuha]

For many people science is as much matter of faith as religion.

The difference is, religions usually bring us wars ... while science brought many useful things, such as fridges, cars, or internet.

[Thein]

For many people science is as much matter of faith as religion.

The difference is, religions usually bring us wars ... while science brought many useful things, such as fridges, cars, or internet.

Exactly. I agree with this 100%.
I technically am a christian, but I hate being associated with the large organization itself. I find its history very disgraceful.

Edit:
@Dog
Hmm... There hasn't been observational data, yes, but I personally consider NDE witnesses as enough observational data.

[Bornerdogge]

Hmm... There hasn't been observational data, yes, but I personally consider NDE witnesses as enough observational data.

nead death experiences are now very well understood and remarkably explained by neuroscientists and neurochemists... If I had more time I could give you many links to studies or papers...

[chriwi]

As far as I know there is no scinentifical proof for self conciousness in the meaning of "cogito ergo sum" ("I think and thas why I know I am"). And also no expaination why a complex structure like our universe including all forms of life will start from an unthinkable nothing not even having basic structures like space or time.
I don't mean this must be a proof for a god, I am only saying the whole univers without any initial creator is also still far from being explained by science.
That basic idea "cogito ergo sum" is the only one every single one of us (if there is more than one) has to start from. After that we have only the perception of our sences and our memory, but we can't be sure if the world around us including matter and other human beings really eists or is rather only some kind of movie or simulation (if it was it need not have to make any sence at all not even physical). Also we have no way to proof that passt perceptios only resting in our memory were really made or if they came in this memory by other means. So the only thing we really know is that exist in whatever way and that we get some perceptions of any kind, whatever they are caused by and that we have a memory from which we assume that it the past perceptions stored in it really happened.
That is just not enoug to proof or disproof the validity of sience or the existence of god.

For my Person I would say, that I am also a somewhat beliving christian which loves science and can also accept it whithout seeing it as a disproof of god. Besides I belive that religions, even taken the case that there is really no god, have a high value for society, giving values which counteract the mere egoism and sencelessness stated by pure evolutionary theory.

[Bornerdogge]

These are all interesting thoughts, but don't you think Occam's razor would suggest the world we "see" is "real" and not some kind of simulation? Of course our perception of the world is in some way altered by our human form (visible light, size, etc.), but science is there to question parts of the world we cannot perceive alone...

Apart from deep philosophical implications, I'll recall that the possible existence of some world-embracing "god", however you call it, doesn't imply the existence of religion per se (ie rituals, institutions, religious wars, fundamentalism etc.)!!

[Kasuha]

Occam's razor is a scientific method. Plus, it does not lead to correct results in all cases, in many cases the theory selected by Occam's razor was proven to be false and scientists had to go for the 'second best' theory to explain things. It works in general as a principle though, similar to the "don't believe in conspiracy theories" approach.

Science does not disprove god. It just tries to explain things without god - but there's so much left to be explained, scientifically uncertain, or simply "out of science" that there's still enough room for god if somebody needs to believe in one.

[mrgumby]

God only exists if you NEED a god to exist?

[chriwi]

As far as I understand Occams razor the the case that some theory Occams razor came up with is proofn wrong lateron only implys that Occams razor was not used correctly in the first place since the fact which lateron prooft the respective theory wrong was not taken in account previously otherwise the razor would not have come up with this theory because its not a valid answer to the question and therby a contradiction to the rules of the razor.
Occams razor makes sence so far that if we have the choice between tow theorys which both predict all observations made in nature by 100% there is no way left to proof that the more complicated or the simpler theory is right, but it also doesn't give a proof that the complicated scenario must be wrong, but it also Implyes that the simple scenario predicting all observations is also sufficient to use to make scinetiffic predictions.
In case we find atheory of everything which doesn't need a god, that would only mean that god is unproofable, but not that it is impossible that he exists despite this fact.
Besides that that tells us only how we should use and handel scintiffic theorys, but not what is best for our behaviour in society as long as we not follow the strict darvinist principle that only the strongest or best should survive and have children and the rest should rather die childless. In my eyes there is even the possibility that a world with a religion and a sence might be better for beings like us even if there should happen to be no god at all.

[Kasuha]

Newton's theory was a result of applying Occam's razor - they were the simplest mathematical formulas available explaining the behavior. Einstein's equations describe it better but if somebody came with them to Newton at the time he'd be rejected just because of Occam's razor - there was no need to add unnecessary complexity.

Regarding dying childless and better world - there's not just one religion in the world. Many muslims would not mind if all christians died childless. So it's all about the definition what the "better world" is. Each religion has its own and sometimes they're very different. And no surprise, each religion declares their view better than any other.

[Bornerdogge]

That's because Newton's and Einstein's theories are not equivalent...
Firstly, Einstein gave an explanation for the gravitational mechanism, whereas Newton "only" described the way body attract each other.
Secondly, Einstein' theory resolves some problems with Newton's theory that had been known long ago (Mercury)...

[Kasuha]

Yes, but that was not the point.

[Bornerdogge]

Yes I didn't read correctly...

I'd like to say, so many people, some much more skilled than us in science, philosophy, sociology, etc., have discussed this subject before! Even if we can't reach a conclusion here, it's very interesting to be able to talk about it without getting angry and to hear about other's people views (which was the primary purpose of the thread I suppose)...

[chriwi]

With "dying childless" I was only referring to the idea of darvinism. I don't belive that fundamentallists of any religion accept darvinism at all evenso the extinction of one religigion by dying all childless could proof the remaining religions as superior in a darvinist way evenso the don't accept the idea of darvinism.
My question was only if we should preferr a world only creating better and better beings by darvinist evolusion without taking care of the weaker, compared to a more social and humanistic apraoch even if it has to be based on the asumption of a supreme being (god) evenso he might not proofably exist or even not exist at all.
For many humans god is the only reason for not to be too egoistic and darvinistic.

I don't say that I don't agree with the darvinistic view of the evolutiojn of life, but I only deny that we or any inteligent beings should continue to follow the same principles to advance our race, society or to organize our dayly live.